Dourado

CHAPTER 14

Dane rapped smartly on the door of the small white cottage. He turned and looked up and down the street. It was a typical pre-World War II neighborhood. The long, narrow thoroughfare was lined with ancient oaks, the roots of some of which were breaking through the sidewalk in places. All of the houses appeared to be in good repair, with neatly trimmed lawns, each bordered by a manicured row of hedge. He should have felt at peace in such surroundings, but he was not. Though he was relieved to have learned that his crew was safe, his senses were on heightened alert. The people who were after them were every bit as dangerous as he had feared. They were well armed, and seemingly had the resources to track their every move.

An elderly woman answered the door. Dane immediately took notice of her sharp, blue eyes. The intensity of her stare was hawk-like, and contrasted with her gently lined face, soft white hair and grandmotherly frock. She regarded them through the screen with an undisguised look of suspicion.

“Mrs. Russell? My name is Dane. This is my friend, Kaylin. Ms. Meyers from the library called you about our visit?”

The woman’s face brightened. “Oh, yes. Come in.” She pushed the screen door open wide, and motioned them inside. They settled onto an overstuffed love seat. Their host pulled up a rocking chair in front of them. “I understand you’re doing some genealogical research?”

“Yes,” Kaylin lied. “We’ve found some drawings in an old family book, and were wondering if you might recognize this house.” She held her notebook open for the woman’s inspection.

The old woman leaned forward, her nose nearly touching the page. After a moment, she leaned far back and peered down her nose at the picture. She shook her head.

“No, I fear I have never seen that house. I have been the unofficial town historian for fifty-three years. I know most every old house in town. That does not mean, however” she added, noticing Kaylin lower her head in disappointment, “that it was never here. Quite a few old homes were torn down in the forties and fifties.” She suddenly cocked her head and stared at the page again. “May I see that notebook?”

Kaylin handed it over, and the historian inspected it carefully.

“These other drawings remind me of the Riverbend Cemetery north of town. There is a stream that runs by it, an old wrought iron fence in the front, and there used to be a giant oak tree on a hill in the center of it. There is a print of it from the nineteenth century that hangs in the funeral home in town.”

“Is there a covered bridge?” Kaylin asked, her voice raising an octave. She leaned forward and turned to the next page of the notebook, where she had copied a picture of such a bridge.

“Why, yes there is,” Mrs. Russell replied. “I see the gravestone here,” she pointed to the sketch. “Is one of your ancestors buried in this cemetery?”

“That’s what we’re wondering,” Dane replied hesitantly. “We heard someone dug up a grave there recently.”

“Yes, it was a terrible thing.” She pursed her lips and frowned. “An old drunkard from town said some people hired him to do it. What foolishness.”

“Was the grave anywhere near the spot where the old oak tree used to stand?” Kaylin asked.

The historian cocked an eyebrow as if this were a very odd question. “I do not know for certain. I have a layout of the cemetery in my records. It shows the locations of the plots, and who is buried in each. Perhaps I can help you find your ancestor.”

She led them through a clean, but cluttered old house jammed with antique furniture and walls lined with paintings in faux-gilded frames to a room in the back of the house. A stout wooden table stood in the center of the room. The walls were nigh-invisible behind bookcases overflowing with books, file folders, and loose papers of various shapes and sizes. The room was the very antithesis of Maxie’s meticulously organized library.

Despite the chaos, Mrs. Russell had no difficulty finding what she was looking for. She walked over to one of the shelves and withdrew a cardboard tube, from inside of which she produced a long, rolled paper. She smoothed it out on the table, pinning the corners down with stray books.

The boundaries of the graveyard were marked in bold blue lines. Plots were denoted by faint dotted lines. Each had a name and number written in tiny, precise print. Pathways crisscrossed the entire cemetery.

“Here is where the grave was desecrated.” She pointed a knobby, liver-spotted finger at a spot not far from the cemetery entrance on the south end of the graveyard. “A man named Covilha, I believe. A Spaniard, or some such.” She moved her hand across the page. “Here is where the oak tree stood.” She indicated a point near the center of the graveyard. “And here is the covered bridge.” Her finger drew a line to the northwest.

“Do you have a string, or a ruler?” Dane asked, struck by a sudden inspiration.

“Certainly.” The old woman exited the room, returning momentarily with an old yardstick which she handed to him.

Dane grinned and smacked it into the palm of his hand. “Just like Mom used to beat me with.”

“I whipped my son with that very same ruler,” Mrs. Russell replied, a wistful smile on her face. “He still frowns when he sees it.”

Dane laid the ruler across the map, angled downward from the top left. He then lined it up so that the edge lay across the center of the drawbridge, as well as the spot where the oak tree had grown.

“Would this line cross the wrought iron fence?” he asked.

“It encircles the graveyard, so yes.”

“What would have been up here, outside the cemetery,” he indicated the place where the ruler left the page, “back in, say, the mid-eighteen hundreds?”

“I do not know. I suppose I could check.” She moved quickly to one of the shelves and began browsing through some oversized books.

“What are you thinking?” Kaylin whispered.

“Just a hunch.” He didn’t want to tell her until he was fairly sure he was right.

The historian laid an oversized book on the table, opened it, and flipped to an index in the back. After a moment, she turned to the page she was looking for.

“Here we are. This is from 1860.” She looked at the cemetery map, then back to her book, did a double-take, then checked each again. “This is a strange coincidence. There was a house here that belonged to Francisco Covilha. I believe that is the same person who…” her voice trailed off.

Dane and Kaylin exchanged excited looks. They were on the right trail. They had to be. Kaylin’s eyes narrowed. Dane believed he could read her thoughts. If Dane was correct, and the clues ran in a straight line, they would not lead to Covilha’s grave, but possibly to that of another person.

“Let me check something,” the historian said. She pulled from the shelf a small clothbound book with a tattered spine, and paged through. “This book was written just before the turn of the century. It has pictures of some of the older buildings that were in the town at that time. I didn’t think of it before.” She found the page she sought. “May I see your sketch, please?”

Kaylin showed her the drawing of the house.

“This is it.” She turned the book around to show them what she was looking at. It was a print of the house in the sketch. At the bottom of the page was a single word: “Covilha.”

“Well, that certainly is interesting,” Mrs. Russell continued.

“Now, about the ancestor you’re looking for; I assume his name was Domenic?” She pointed to the name Kaylin had found in one of Covhila’s books.

“Um, that’s right,” Kaylin said.

“Well, let me see. There is a plot with the name Domenic LaRoche right here.” The location she indicated was on the opposite side of the oak tree, in perfect line with the house and covered bridge. “Is that the person you were looking for?” The elderly woman looked at them with a smile that said she was quite pleased with herself.

“That’s him,” Kaylin said, grinning. She clasped the woman’s hand in both of hers. “Mrs. Russell, thank you for your help.”

“You are most welcome.” The woman smiled kindly.

“There’s one other thing,” Kaylin began. “If someone were to come asking about me…”

“Ms. Meyers told me about your situation with that terrible man. I’ll be happy to keep your confidence.”

Dane added his thanks, and they left the house. As they climbed into the car, Dane quietly contemplated what they had learned.

“Do you think that’s the answer?” Kaylin asked. “The sword is buried with this Domenic person?”

He turned to face her, his heart racing. “I think we should go to the cemetery, and follow the clues.”